


what the morning only dreams about

by neyvenger (jjjat3am)



Category: Football RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-23
Updated: 2016-08-23
Packaged: 2018-08-10 16:39:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7852912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jjjat3am/pseuds/neyvenger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neymar and Rafinha in the aftermath of the Olympics gold medal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	what the morning only dreams about

 

 

The Maracanã is alight around them, the people’s voices melding into a beautiful cacophony of sound, calling for a goal, for a win. The floodlights make the colors feel too vivid, stinging his eyes, as the green expanse stretches endless beneath his feet. It’s so loud. Someone’s hands touch his back as he moves forward, and there’s desperation in the push.

Neymar gets the ball from the referee, raises it up to press his lips to the smooth plastic surface. It smells like grass and a little like ozone. He places it on the spot and takes his run up.

He doesn’t think about missing.

Doesn’t think about the headlines, or the medals lined up in their cases. Not about the men lined up behind him or the people in the stands, in the streets, in their homes, with his name on their lips, a benediction.

The German keeper’s face is as red as his jersey. He looks focused. Maybe if it had been Ter Stegen, he would have smiled.

He’s taken this shot at least a thousand times before. Against bedroom walls and rattling garage doors. Against trainers, who shouted at him to do it again and do it better. Into the net, with Leo’s voice an order in his ears and Luis’ high laugh somewhere behind them.

He runs. His foot hits the ball, the same at 23 as at 13 as at 3. The sound fades into silence, his heart loud in his ears.

The ball hits the back of the net, and he’s running, but he doesn’t know where to. The sound floods back in a rush, right before the bodies of his teammates hit him and he’s on his knees, muting his sobs into someone’s neck, into someone’s hands, into someone’s body.

He looks up, and sees the lights.

 

 

*

 

 

Through it all, there’s Rafa.

Rafa’s arms coming up around him, their cheeks pressed together, muttering nonsense in Neymar’s ear, over and over, mouth moving against the damp skin of Neymar’s neck as they slip to their knees. Neymar lets him, takes the weight, locks his arms around Rafa’s back, the steady sweaty warmth of him, familiar, even when the colors are different.

Rafa pulls back, his eyes full of tears, and Neymar watches himself reflected in his pupils, distorted, and somehow bigger than he knows himself to be.

“A medal to put next to your papa’s in the trophy case,” Neymar says, and is startled at the low sound Rafa makes in turn, the tears that finally spill over.

 

 

*

 

 

The medal is heavy around his neck, but lighter than duty, lighter than belief. He raises its cold surface against his lips, their damp impression marking the metal. His hands shake, so he curls them against the shape of it, allows its sharp edges to dig into his skin, steadying.

 

 

*

 

 

Carole’s brought Davi with her to watch, and when Neymar raises him up in his arms, he marvels at how heavy he is. He seems to grow, from trophy to trophy, his progress more intangible, but infinitely more than the precious metals.

His kisses flutter over Neymar’s cheeks like little butterflies, and Neymar supposes that he’s lucky that Davi’s seen him sweaty and victorious enough times that he doesn’t complain about papa being smelly anymore.

“I won gold for Brazil, like you told me to,” Neymar says to him, “do you remember?”

Davi tilts his head to the side, then shrugs a little in the way he does when he doesn’t remember and is trying to avoid the question. He pulls on the medal and raises it up to his face, admiring the shine.

“It’s heavy,” he pronounces finally and Neymar laughs, presses a kiss against his temple, and doesn’t tell him how much.

 

 

*

 

 

Neymar waves goodbye to the crowd, enters the hallway just in time to be doused with champagne, soaking his already wet clothes further. He laughs as the bubbles dance over his skin and drinks when someone hands him a bottle.

A body presses tight against his back, arms twining around his stomach and he instinctively stiffens, then relaxes back into it, once he recognizes the shape.

“ _Princesa_ ,” he mutters and Rafa huffs out a laugh against the nape of his neck. His thumb dips briefly into the waistband of Neymar’s shorts and Neymar shudders, another kind of feeling mixing with the joy in his veins.

Someone calls Neymar’s name and their surroundings come rushing back. Rafa pulls away. The warmth of him stays.

 

 

*

 

 

The buzz of the tattoo gun is familiar, the pinpricks of pain almost comforting as the design is inked in around his wrist. It doesn’t hurt, not really, but Rafa holds his hand through it, watching the artist work with dark, glassy eyes.

 

 

*

 

 

They trip into bed in a mass of giggles and uncoordinated limbs. Rafa attacks the laces on his shorts with single-minded determination, while Neymar shakes with laugher, clinging onto his shoulders.

He likes Rafa when he’s like this, ghosting fingertips over the tattoos on his torso and pressing their hips together. He’s bulked up during his recovery and his weight is heavy across his hips, his torso, a hand wrapped round his wrist, holding it immobile against the sheets. Neymar thinks about struggling against the grip. He’d probably be able to break it if he tried.

Rafa leans down, presses kisses across his cheek, to the corner of his mouth, to his bottom lip, and Neymar forgets about resisting, goes boneless against the sheets. Lets Rafa move him where he wants him to be.

It feels good to let someone else take responsibility.

Their medals clack together between them as they move, the metal warmed up by skin, slippery with sweat. 

He watches Rafa from under his eyelashes, in the street lights coming through the windows, the slashes of muted orange across his skin, the dark glitter of his eyes. He smells like generic soap and peroxide, and Neymar smothers a laugh against the skin of his wrist.

“What?” Rafa asks, speaking in a hushed whisper. Neymar sees the flash of his teeth in the half-dark, almost as bright as his hair.

“I can’t believe you let me convince you into bleaching your hair,” he says, reaches out to push his fingers through the strands, breath stuttering when Rafa nuzzles against his palm. “You look like a traffic sign.”

“I’m a handsomer traffic sign than you,” Rafa says, and Neymar laughs again, shaking with it, almost hysterical. Rafinha presses soft kisses against his stomach, traces the edges of his tattoos from memory until Neymar calms, laughter giving way to soft moans.

Rafa talks during sex. Soft endearments and sweet praise, and raspy, filthy promises, all merging into one loud litany of sound, words indistinguishable from each other, but the sentiment behind them achingly clear.

 

 

*

 

 

Neymar wakes up a few hours later, the first vestiges of dawn spreading across the Rio horizon. Rafa is breathing soft and even against his side.

The medal is still around his neck, pressed up against his skin hard enough to leave an imprint. He takes it off, lets it clatter on the nightstand. He touches the bruised skin on his chest it left behind.

It’s not too bad. Nothing like the pain it took to get it.

Rafa’s got his medal clutched tightly in his hand, so he doesn’t even attempt to take it off him, just curls up tight around his body, because it’s chilly now without his body heat. Rafa hums in his sleep and Neymar runs a soothing hand down his flank, presses his nose into the hair at the nape of Rafa’s neck, and goes back to sleep.

 

 

*

 

 

Rio de Janeiro wakes up with the dawn, street vendors selling newspapers with the headlines of another gold medal. The Olympic flame crackles merrily in its holder. People board trains to return home after a long night, to be side-eyed by the ones heading into work. A young woman juggles a ball between her feet as she walks to school.

In an anonymous hotel room, a young man smiles in his sleep and dreams of standing on the penalty spot.

It’s the deepest he’s sleep in a while.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Notes:  
> \- Rafinha's family and most of his friends call him Rafa. Neymar has occasionally publicly called him princesa.  
> \- Mazinho, Rafinha's father, won the World Cup with Brazil in 1994  
> \- [Neymar and Davi celebrating](https://neyvenger.tumblr.com/post/149271671005/tudopassanjr-neymar-and-davi)  
> \- some photos of Neymar and Rafinha celebrating [x,](https://neyvenger.tumblr.com/post/149317723525/sashapique-neymar-celebrates-with-rafael) [x,](https://neyvenger.tumblr.com/post/149272015540) [x](https://neyvenger.tumblr.com/post/149271503010/heartsoftruth-200816)  
> \- Neymar got a [tattoo](https://67.media.tumblr.com/86fdb005cca0a8202d7fc55fdb5c1140/tumblr_oc8yeurQSU1uamqg6o1_500.jpg) right after the final  
> \- he and Rafa also both bleached their hair for some strange reason   
> \- [tumblr](neyvenger.tumblr.com)


End file.
